It was then the custom for the sponsors to give {309}"christening shirts," with little bands and cuffs edged with laces of gold and various kinds--a relic of the ancient custom of presenting white clothes to the neophytes when converted to Christianity. The "bearing cloth,"[871] as the mantle used to cover the child when carried to baptism was called,[872] was also richly trimmed with lace and cut-work, and the Tree of Knowledge, the Holy Dove (Fig. 123), or the Flowerpot of the Annunciation (Fig. 124), was worked in "hollie-work" on the crown of the infant's cap or "biggin." [Illustration: Fig. 123.] [Illustration: Fig. 124.] CHRISTENING CAPS, NEEDLE-MADE BRUSSELS.--Eighteenth century. Aprons, too, of lace appeared in this reign. The Queen, as we have mentioned, wears one in her portrait at Gripsholm.[873] "Those aprons white, of finest thread, So choicelie tied, so dearly bought; So finely fringed, so nicely spread; So quaintly cut, so richly wrought," writes the author of _Pleasant Quippes for Upstart Gentlewomen_, {310}in 1596. The fashion continued to the end of the eighteenth century. Laced handkerchiefs now came into fashion. "Maydes and gentlewomen," writes Stowe, "gave to their favourites, as tokens of their love, little handkerchiefs of about three or four inches square, wrought round about," with a button at each corner.[874] The best were edged with a small gold lace. Gentlemen wore them in their hats as favours of their mistresses. Some cost sixpence, some twelvepence, and the richest sixteenpence. Of the difference between purles and true lace it is difficult now to decide. The former word is of frequent occurrence among the New Year's Gifts, where we have "sleeves covered all over with purle,"[875] and, in one case, the sleeves are offered unmade, with "a piece of purle upon a paper to edge them."[876] It was yet an article of great value and worthy almost of entail, for, in 1573, Elizabeth Sedgwicke, of Wathrape, widow, bequeaths to her daughter Lassells, of Walbron, "an edge of perlle for a remembrance, desirying her to give it to one of her daughters."[877] We now turn, before quitting the sixteenth century, to that most portentous of all fabrications--Queen Elizabeth's ruff. In the time of the Plantagenets Flemish tastes prevailed. With the Tudors, Katherine of Aragon, on her marriage with Prince Arthur, introduced the Spanish fashions, and the inventories from Henry VIII. downwards are filled with Spanish work, Spanish stitch, and so forth. Queen Elizabeth leant to the French and Italian modes, and during the Stuarts they were universally adopted.